Butler Did It

by Donna McLean

  The barber pole across the street spun slowly, red and white going around and around, nothing else to do on a hot summer’s day. Customers entered or exited every so often, just enough to keep the barber busy without being rushed. Addie grinned at a group of children scooting around pedestrians all the way up the street to the ice cream shop, their harried mother lagging behind and yelling unheeded, “Y’all slow down now! Watch out for those folks!”

  The young woman’s gaze turned to the Cow Steed Fountain. It was rather pretty, she thought, in an odd sort of way. The cow stood at least seven feet tall, its marble head raised, its open mouth spewing water droplets all around. The droplets sparkled in the sunlight and landed in the water of the large basin inside which the cow stood. One front hoof was raised slightly, the edge just touching the water, and its artfully sculptured tail seemed poised to flick flies off its back.

  “What’s the story behind the fountain? It must be a good one!”

  Pearce Allen laughed at the understatement. “During the Revolutionary War old Farmer MacKinnon’s milk cow, Flossie, saved Sparrow Falls from the Redcoats.”

  “You’re kidding!” Addie said.

  “No ma’am, I am not. The farmer’s kids used to ride ol’ Flossie, so she was kind of like a horse. The story goes that late one night the road into town had been cut off by the Loyalists, who were waiting to meet up with the Redcoats and claim the town for the Crown, I guess, or something like that. Those Highlanders who were not Loyalists gathered at the square to protect the town. Old Farmer MacKinnon rode Flossie all over the place, alerting the other farmers and settlers to join forces and defend Sparrow Falls. He was poor, didn’t have a horse or even a mule, so riding Flossie was a lot faster than walking. And so, the brave Cow Steed did its part for liberty!”

  The young woman bit her lip and made no comment. Stranger things had happened in Sparrow Falls, that much was true. Even so, Addie wondered if he were making things up as he went along, his mischievous nature showing itself again. She decided to visit the library later to verify the story of the Cow Steed Fountain.

  Addie glanced furtively at Pearce Allen, and realized that his gaze and his thoughts were already fastened upon the Harbinger building a block away while he silently composed his breaking news story. She took a secret moment to study him, noticing the way the sunlight made his golden brown hair appear almost blond and the always present, slightly pensive smile on his face caused a dimple in the cutest way.

  “It must have been nice to grow up here,” she commented with a wistful sigh.

  His blue eyes turned to meet hers and the dimple deepened when he smiled.

  Addie McRae leaned back on her hands and took a deep breath. She exhaled slowly, looking out at the town square. “I mean, a small town where everyone knows you, and there’s a story tied to everything, a story everyone shares. And a slow pace, and no one rushing here and there all the time. It’s like a person can really live here, really take the time to enjoy life.”

  “That’s what I think, too,” Pearce Allen agreed amiably.

  The comfortable silence enveloped them again.

  As though making a counterpoint to the slow pace of life in Sparrow Falls, a brisk middle-aged man in jeans and a plaid shirt hurried into view, carrying a red metal toolbox. He caught sight of the couple on the front porch and nodded in their general direction, but didn’t slow down as he approached the old mansion. “How y’all doing,” he commented briefly and without breaking stride, and sped up the steps.

  “Edison Farlow, from the hardware store,” Pearce Allen answered Addie’s silent question. He walked to the open front door of the house and leaned against the door jam. Addie joined him and together they watched the man exchange a few brief words with Officer Campbell, then place the toolbox on the floor outside the locked room.

  Campbell stood with his back to the curious couple. “Thought Whit was the only locksmith in town,” he commented.

  “He is. But he’s gone to Raleigh. Thought you only needed a glasscutter so I came right over.” Edison knelt down and studied the brass plate on the outside of the door, spreading the fingers of one hand across it with a curious expression on his face. “Unusual, ain’t it?” he commented. “A keyhole only on one side of a door like that.”

  “Old Man MacGuffin,” Joe said with a shrug, as though that explained everything.

  Edison said, “Yep.” He peered through the narrow glass window, shook his head, and proceeded to rifle through the toolbox without saying another word.

  The police officer stood by impatiently, the medical examiner slightly curious but mostly bored. The man from the hardware store studied the old windowpanes carefully, then rapped his knuckles against them and stated, “Like bottle glass. That’s one thick old pane. They used to make ’em that way. This may take awhile.”

  He donned heavy work gloves. Edison put the glasscutter to the pane of glass and set to work making a circle a little larger than a baseball. The metal teeth of the saw made a scratching sound against the glass. It began to crack and give way. Edison used the handle of a screwdriver to tap gently, and the glass circle fell inside the room, landing on the plush, dark red carpet. The man removed a glove, carefully put his hand through the circle, reached in and turned the iron key to the left, then the right. The bolt slid back with a loud pop.

  Officer Campbell grasped the doorknob and twisted it hard, leaning against the door with one shoulder. The wooden door creaked and groaned as though protesting, but this time it opened. The policeman and the coroner entered the room, one glancing all around and observing everything, the other focused only on the body fallen on the desk. Edison walked in right behind them, aghast but curious.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Officer Campbell said sharply.

  Edison’s hand where he had placed the key on the mantel moved like a rocket. He hooked his thumbs over the belt loops of his blue jeans and stood perfectly still, watching the activities with wide eyes.

  The policeman hurried to the windows, pulled back the heavy velvet curtains, coughed in the dusty air. He unlocked a window and, with an effort, raised it to let in some fresh air. His hand paused at the second window, some instinct commanding him to turn around, to listen to his coworker’s description more closely, to follow his own advice and not touch anything.

  Joe Smyth bent over the body, studying it with great attention. His detailed monotone played over it like a voiceover in an old noir movie. He summed up, “One gunshot to the head, possibly self-inflicted.”

  Officer Douglas Winton Campbell crossed his arms and frowned. There was something in the coroner’s voice, something odd. He pounced upon the word. “Possibly?”

  Joe nodded and continued the examination in silence. After a long time he said, “It appears to be suicide. But where is the gun? It’s not under his head or in his lap.”

  The policeman knelt on the floor. “Nothing under the desk.” He straightened up and looked at the drawers and cubbyholes of the old fashioned furniture without disturbing the contents. “Nothing here, either.”

  He looked at the coroner. Their faces were puzzled.

  “The door was definitely locked from the inside,” said the policeman.

  “And all the windows too?” asked the coroner.

  Campbell strode to the remaining two windows and tried to open them. He nodded grimly. Each one was firmly fastened from the inside, just as the first window had been before he opened it. “Locked, and besides that, these windows had been painted and stuck tight for years. It’s obvious that they haven’t been opened for a very long time.”

  Addie spoke up from the doorway. “There’s no other way in or out! Pearce Allen and I looked before we called you.”

  The policeman glared at them, scowling, and stomped out of the room. He walked up and down the weird hall, stopping to explore the rooms on either side of the crime scene, and finally came to the same conclusion that the young couple had drawn. There was no other doorway or entrance. />
  There was a dead body with a bullet wound.

  And there was no gun.

  * * * * *

  Officer Campbell dismissed Pearce Allen, Addie and Edison with gruff impatience, ordering them to immediately vacate the premises. “Looks like we may have a crime scene now. Everybody scram.”

  The couple exchanged worried glances, and left.

  Edison hurriedly picked up the glass shards, tossed everything into the red toolbox and vanished from the doorway.

  Campbell turned back to the coroner, his lips set in a grim line. Together he and Smyth quickly searched the floor, the desk, the underside of the desk, and looked beneath the carpet. The policeman finally stood up, rubbed the back of his sweating neck, and said, “Let’s call it a day. I need a breath of fresh air.”

  “Go ahead. I know the routine; I’ll lock up when I leave. Still got some pictures to take.”

  Joe returned to the corpse and jotted down a few notes before rummaging through his equipment. He frowned, muttered aloud, “Left the camera in the truck again. Got to quit doing that,” and then paused. Had he heard something?

  He listened for a few minutes, shrugged his thin shoulders and shook his head. “Just me and John Doe all alone in this creepy mansion.”

  He left to get the camera. A few minutes later he returned to the room. Joe Smyth scanned the crime scene and moved a light closer to the body. Then he paused, listening. Only silence pervaded the old mansion. Joe shrugged and got to work. “I reckon old man MacGuffin is getting to me, too,” he muttered.

  FIVE

  Tilda’s hazel green eyes were bright and intelligent, her head tilted to one side. She resembled a tiny, curious bird as she listened to Addie’s description of the afternoon’s events.

  They sat on the front porch of Tilda’s cottage just before nightfall, the older woman on a comfortable wicker settee and the younger one leaning against the white banister attached to a tall circular column. When the young woman finished her tale, Tilda MacArdan said in an awestruck voice, “A genuine locked room mystery!”

  Addie grinned. “Sure looks that way.”

  Tilda leaned back in the chair and placed one hand against her cheek. The other hand was absently scratching the top of Puddin’s head, the little brown and white terrier curled up at Tilda’s feet, snoozing away the warm summer dusk. “And they don’t have any idea who the man was?”

  “No. No idea at all.”

  The spry senior citizen whistled. Puddin’ leaped to attention and wagged his tail. “Bless his heart, didn’t mean to wake him!” Tilda said.

  Suddenly the little dog whirled and barked with all the ferocity his tiny form could muster. Someone was approaching the porch steps. Addie leaned forward to see past the purple wisteria vine that climbed upon a trellis on the edge of Ms. MacArdan’s front porch.

  “It’s Officer Campbell,” she announced over Puddin’s din. The man’s heavy tread took the steps one by one.

  Tilda’s face lit up. “Douglas Winton Campbell!” she said with delight. “You come on over here and sit down right next to me. Can I get you some lemonade? A slice of pound cake? How about some blackberry cobbler? Is this about that poor dead man over at the MacGuffin Mansion?”

  The officer’s gentle smile dissolved into a grimace. He glared at Addie. “I see you’ve heard the news already, and not from the Sparrow Falls Harbinger.”

  “But still a reliable source,” Addie responded with a smile.

  “Then we can get right to the point. I’d like to hear exactly what happened today when y’all were exploring the old house, and in your own words, Ms. Tilda, not what you’ve heard from somebody else.” He shot Addie a pointed glance.

  “Well, there’s nothing much to tell,” Tilda began. “The mayor wanted his picture taken for the newspaper and he pulled me into it, land sakes, my hair looked a right mess! It always does when the humidity is high like it’s been of late. Frizzy, frizzy, frizzy, no matter what I do to it. You don’t have that problem, Douglas Winton, because you, and your daddy too, have got the purtiest curly hair I ever did see.” She turned to Addie. “You should have seen this big strapping man when he was a wee baby, Addie, you would have had a fit over those bonny blond curls!”

  Douglas Winton removed his policeman’s cap, ran thick fingers through his closely cropped dark blond curls, and wiped the sweat off the back of his neck. “Ms. Tilda. Will you please tell me what happened this morning when you went inside the MacGuffin Mansion? That is all I need to know right now. Please, ma’am?”

  “Oh, yes. The mansion. Well, we were all in the mansion together. That was Mayor Motley, Maybellanne Motley, me, Pearce Allen and Addie, although those two kind of wandered off by themselves, being a young courtin’ couple, you know how that is, Douglas Winton.” She gave him a wink and a grin.

  Addie smiled.

  Campbell frowned.

  Tilda continued.

  “Yes, well, be that as it may. Maybellanne and I went into a room off the hall near the front door. The mayor went through that room and then went off by himself on down the hall. We didn’t see where he went, to tell you the truth. I mean, we didn’t see which room he went into.”

  Campbell grunted and wrote something in his notebook.

  “I guess we were in what my mama used to call a parlor. A room that’s kind of on the fancy side, mainly just for purty. You know, not really useful day by day, only used for having company over. People don’t have parlors much nowadays, and I think that’s such a shame. Folks don’t take the time to go around calling and visiting the way they used to do a long time ago—”

  Here Officer Campbell interrupted with a polite clearing of the throat, and Tilda hurriedly got back to the point.

  “Maybellanne and I both thought that was such a purty room, all done up with flowery wallpaper and red velvet on the chair backs and fancy little tables, you know, like things were done a long time ago. Although that ditzy wallpaper made me feel right swimmy headed. Swirling vines and itty bitty flowers scattered every which way!”

  “And we were looking out the window at the street and I realized there was something strange about that window.” She wagged her finger. “From the outside of the house it looked like one window, but inside that room it looked like there were two windows side by side!”

  The officer blinked. A puzzled frown crossed his face.

  “Why did it look like two windows, Ms. Tilda?” he asked.

  “Because there were too many curtains hanging over it, that’s why! It looked like the pair of curtains on the left had been drawn back to let in the light but the curtains on the right were still closed. And when we opened those curtains, well, you will never guess what we saw! Never!” She paused and waited for him to guess.

  He sighed. “I can’t even begin to guess. Tell me what you saw.”

  “We saw another window! But it wasn’t a real window, it was just a painted on window!”

  “Painted on the wall?” Douglas asked.

  “Yes sir, that’s what it was all right, painted right there on the wall to make it look like a window!” Tilda slapped a hand to her knee. “If that don’t beat all! That Alfred MacGuffin must have been a jaybird if there ever was one, making jokes all over the house!”

  The officer said grimly, “This latest joke isn’t a very funny one. Addie told me about the long hallway and the mirrors. That’s the kind of trick they use in funhouses to throw people off kilter. Makes ’em think they are further away than they really are. MacGuffin must have created some secret way to enter and exit the murder room without using the door or the windows, but how the killer did it I just don’t know.”

  Tilda MacArdan’s birdlike face brightened. “Maybe it was a bookcase that wasn’t a bookcase!” she crowed in delight.

  “Or a door that wasn’t a door,” Addie added.

  “That’s what happened to the mayor!” Tilda said.

  “What’s that?” Douglas Winton Campbell inquired, lost.

 
Addie told him about the Mayor’s disappearance and the mysterious room.

  “Is that a fact?” The officer leaned back on the chair, the notepad on one knee and the pencil resting on the other. He thought things over for a couple of minutes. “So there was nothing there but walls of bookcases. How did he get out?”

  Tilda spoke up. “Well, it was a bookcase, but then it wasn’t, you see.” She beamed at him.

  He pursed his lips and frowned. “No, I don’t see. Where was the door?”

  Addie said, “It was a door, but then it wasn’t a door. That was the whole problem!”

  The two women watched the policeman expectantly. They expected him to get it, but he didn’t.

  He began again, forcing patience into his voice and demeanor. “Okay. Let’s get this straight. It was a bookcase. Then it wasn’t a bookcase.”

  “Because it was a door,” Addie said.

  Douglas glared at her. “Okay. It was a door —”

  “—but it was really a bookcase!” Tilda finished in triumph. “Now you understand, don’t you?”

  The despairing officer removed his cap and hung his head. He took a deep breath. Then he took another one. He rubbed his face with one hand.

  Tilda caught Addie’s eye and nodded toward the man’s bonny curls gilded by the setting sun. Addie tried not to giggle.

  “Okay, ladies, is one of you going to tell me how this door, or this bookcase, or whatever it was, caused Mayor Motley to vanish for approximately—” he consulted the notebook, “thirty-five minutes at 1:25 PM on Tuesday?”

  Addie explained slowly. “The mayor went into the first room through the door from the hall. He went through another doorway into a smaller room. He thought he was in a library or a study because there were bookcases on all the other walls. He walked to the desk and then he turned around, and the door he had just entered was gone. It had turned into a bookcase! Just like that!”

  “Just. Like. That.” The exasperated man blew air through his tense lips. He gave Addie a searching glance, turned to Tilda and did the same.